No Rest for Wayward Sons
by leetale
Summary: Lucy didn't ask for the dreams. Well, no one asks to be tormented by nightmares of a stranger burning alive, but Lucy's case is especially weird. She just met the guy. And now, after the events of her dream came to pass in nauseatingly-clear, up-close, IMAX quality, Lucy finds herself wrapped up with two men with a mystery of their own. Naturally, nothing goes according to plan.


Chapter 1: A Fateful Meeting

_October 20__th__, 1983. Georgetown, Colorado_

Henry Benson entered the nursery to the sound of giggling. His wife, Margaret, leaned against the doorframe, watching their six-year-old daughter chatter animatedly at the baby in the crib. Lucy, being six months old, had no idea what her older sister was saying but seemed to be enjoying the attention, nonetheless. Henry smiled to himself, momentarily blown away by his luck in having such a beautiful family. He wrapped his arms around Margaret and breathed deeply into her dark-blonde curls, smiling as she relaxed back into him.

"We should put the kids to bed," she murmured, too low for their daughters to hear.

Henry looked a little put out, "Do we have to just yet? Look at how happy they are. And it's Lucy's birthday!" he reasoned.

Margaret laughed, "It's her 6-month birthday."

"That's a birthday!"

Margaret smiled fondly and kissed his cheek, shaking free of his arms in the process. She approached the crib and put a hand on her oldest daughter's back.

"It's time for bed Lainie, say goodnight to your sister," she said softly. Elaina pouted but didn't argue, instead bending down into the crib and placing a sloppy kiss on the baby's cheek. Lucy gurgled and reached out to grab a piece of Elaina's swinging golden hair.

"Goodnight Lulu! I love you!" Lainie whispered loudly enough that it wasn't really a whisper anymore before turning around and running into her father's arms.

"Oof, you're getting so big!" he groaned as he picked her up, pretending to struggle with the weight. Elaina giggled and wrapped her arms and legs around him like a monkey. Margaret looked on fondly and couldn't help but think what a wonderful father her husband made.

"I'll get this little monster," he said over his shoulder, poking Lainie's tummy, "you go on to bed, babe."

Margaret stood on her toes and kissed him fully on the mouth, then. When she pulled back, Henry's eyes were a little unfocused. A slow, lazy grin spread on his face.

"What was that for?" he asked teasingly.

"Nothing important. I just love you, is all," she replied.

His eyes grew soft, "I love you too, Maggie."

Margaret gave him another peck before laughing and pushing him down the hall towards their daughter's room. She could still hear their high-pitched giggling and hushed whispering as she walked into her and her husband's shared bedroom and collapsed on the bed. She was asleep in seconds.

…

The sound of Lucy crying over the baby monitor woke Margaret from a deep, exhausted sleep. She groaned and rolled over, poking her husband's back.

"Are you gonna get this, or am I?" she asked. When all she received as an answer was an exaggerated snore, she rolled her eyes and stood from the bed. It was, she noted from a glance at the clock, a little past one in the morning. Blinking sleep from her eyes, she padded lightly out of her room and across the hall to the baby nursery. She yawned as she opened the door.

"What's got you in such a fuss, Lulu?" She mumbled, rubbing her eyes. When she opened them again, icy cold panic shot down her spine.

There was a man in her daughter's room.

Margaret screamed and the man whirled around, his unnatural yellow eyes meeting her blue ones. Recognition flooded through her like an electric shock.

"It's you," she whispered, horrified.

The man grinned.

Henry jolted awake to the sound of his wife's scream from across the hall. He shot out of bed immediately and dashed into the baby's room after her. He threw the door open so hard that it made a dent in the wall behind it.

There was no one there.

"Maggie?" he called out warily, stepping into the room.

Lucy was wailing in her crib. He walked over and picked her up, cradling her to him protectively and making soft soothing noises. She calmed down instantly, cooing and curling into his warmth. Henry smiled and released just a little bit of the nervous tension in his shoulders as he looked down at her. His daughter was safe and sound.

And then something dark dripped onto her forehead.

Henry frowned, puzzled, as another dark drop fell onto his daughter's face. He looked up to find the source and his eyes widened in horror.

"Margaret!?" he screamed, all the breath in his body leaving him in one punch.

Margaret's body was pinned to the ceiling seemingly by nothing, eyes whited out, expression locked in a terrified scream, blood pooling on her chest and stomach. Henry realized distantly that it had been his wife's blood dripping down onto on his daughter's face. He had barely a moment to react before Margaret's body erupted into flames.

Henry screamed again as fire enveloped the room, burning faster than anything natural. His every instinct cried out for him to save his wife, to leap into the fire after her, but the crying bundle in his arms grounded him. He held his youngest daughter tight and burst into the hall, scaring Elaina, who was awoken by the noise and had come to investigate.

"Daddy?" she asked, frightened. Her eyes were locked on the glow of the inferno and she coughed a little as smoke began to spread into the rest of the house. Henry fell to his knees with a painful jolt and placed Lucy in her hands.

"I need you to take your sister outside! I'm going to get your mother," he said, standing and turning back towards the nursery with grim determination.

"But Daddy, w-"

"Now, Lain!"

Elaina stumbled backwards, eyes wild, and ran towards the stairs with her sister. Once she was gone, Henry ran back into the nursery, his only thought that of saving Margaret.

Elaina ran down the stairs and across the living room to the front door. Terrified, she fumbled with the handle. No success. She couldn't reach the topmost lock.

Panicking, she whirled around, eyes snapping on an open window. She tore across the room, making sure to hold on to Lucy with one arm and throwing open the screen with the other, and slid through the tight gap. She stumbled out into the night and down the stairs of her porch before her already shaky legs gave out from under her and she collapsed on the wet grass of her front yard. She looked up at the house, where the flames were now sky-high, before turning to look at Lucy. She pulled her baby sister closer and tucked her legs to her chest. She would wait for Daddy. Daddy would come back.

But he never did. Even when the fire department had arrived and Elaina began to hear talk of "what to do about the children", he never returned.

...

_22 Years Later_

"How do you like your eggs, Miss?"

"Sunny-side-up. Runny, if you don't mind."

"I'll have that right out for you."

Lucy smiled and thanked the waitress, turning her attention back to the trashy romance novelin her hand. Try as she might to concentrate, she just couldn't be distracted by bad smut this morning. A vivid nightmare the night before had kept her up late into the night and she was losing the battle to stay awake.

_So much for celebrating a job well done._

After realizing she had been re-reading the same line for about five minutes, she set the novel aside and exchanged it for the newspaper laying in the seat beside her. The headline read, "Man-Killing Bear Still Not Found". She smirked to herself_. It's not likely they're gonna find it in the future, either,_ she thought, _considering I just ganked the thing._

Blue Ridge, Georgia was a small city used to a rough-and-tumble life in the mountains. Quiet and cozy with an abundance of beautiful scenery, Blue Ridge received a generous amount of tourism during the summer months. The inhabitants of the mountain town were used to the danger that came with living in their environment, expecting a couple of hiker disappearances a year. It wasn't until those hikers' mutilated corpses started showing back up that they began to panic. Of course, they blamed the whole thing on a particularly aggressive black bear, but cops never get the full story.

_Ten deaths spread out over a couple of months around the same time in the lunar cycle, hearts missing. Textbook werewolf._

And it was. Just yesterday Lucy had tracked the creature, a local deer-hunter, to his cabin in the woods and driven a silver dagger through his heart. It wasn't even a fight worth remembering. Afterward, she had returned to her motel to get a full-night's sleep in celebration of another evil monster biting the dust.

Which had been nice, until she woke up trembling and sweating from the same recurring nightmare she had been having for weeks.

It was always the same: a flickering neon sign reading "Closed" with the "e" unlit, then flash to a young man laying on a bed; blood dripping onto his forehead; him opening his eyes to see a blonde woman's corpse on the ceiling, face locked in an eternal scream as she burst into flames. Lucy didn't believe in all that "dream interpretation" crap, but she wondered what kind of fucked-up mind she had to have to even dream that up.

Well, she had kind of a fucked-up job, so maybe it wasn't so far-fetched.

Lucy was shaken from her thoughts by her waitress returning with breakfast. She nodded her thanks, eyeing the eggs ravenously and digging in the moment the woman had turned her back. People in her line of work didn't exactly get paid, so a good meal was sometimes a little hard to come by. Maybe the yolks were a little too solid for her liking and maybe the bacon was just a little too burnt, but anything felt better on her body than her usual menu: Burger Shack grease traps. She would relish in this meal for as long as she could.

As she finished her breakfast, the waitress brought her check over to the table. Lucy briefly eyed the cost, then nodded, handing her a credit card.

The waitress squinted at the name on the card, "Thank you, Ms…. Szezchpanski? Did I pronounce that right?" Lucy nodded and smiled, no idea if she had pronounced that right, and the waitress left to scan her card. She had only just walked away when Lucy's phone rang, some default royalty-free song playing softly. She glanced briefly at the caller ID before picking up.

"Hey, Bobby!" she said in greeting.

"Hey, Lou! Good to hear you're still kickin'," said the gruff male voice, Bobby Singer, on the other end of the line.

Lucy scoffed, "If I was taken out by the least subtle werewolf on the planet, I wouldn't be much of a hunter, now would I?"

"It's a good thing you are, then," he replied, "Anyway, I called because I might have a new case for you. A couple of young guys disappearing without a trace all on the same stretch of road. Poof. Gone. No explanations, cars locked from the inside. Cops can't figure it out. Tickle your fancy?" Lucy grinned, standing from her seat and exiting the diner before the waitress could bring back the fake credit card.

"Where am I headed?"

_A little over a week later, October 31__st__, 2005. Stanford University._

Jessica frowned as she dropped the earring she had been trying to put on. Reaching down to get it, she caught sight of herself in the mirror and groaned. This had to be the most ridiculous costume she had ever worn.

She was dressed as a nurse for this Halloween party she and Sam were supposed to be going to. The slutty kind of nurse, because God knows no medical professional would ever dress like this. It was supposed to be ironic, considering she was in med school, but she just kind of looked like a hooker. Sam didn't seem to be complaining, though.

Speaking of, her boyfriend _still_ had not come out of the bedroom.

"Sam," she called out, "get a move on, would ya? We were supposed to be there like fifteen minutes ago." A few moments passed with no response.

"Sam? You coming or what?" she asked.

Sam sheepishly poked his head out of the bedroom, "Do I have to?" he asked.

"Yes! It'll be fun!" she replied, laughing at the fact he thought an appropriate costume was jeans and a button-down, "And where's your costume?"

Sam scoffed, "You know how I feel about Halloween."

Jessica rolled her eyes and smiled, tossing her hair over her shoulder, "Come on! We're celebrating tonight!"

...

The club music was loud and pulsing in Sam's ears, every thought being overwhelmed by the unrelenting bass. Sam winced at a particularly powerful example and Jessica gave him a sympathetic smile.

"So here's to Sam and his awesome LSAT victory," she declared, raising her drink in a toast.

Sam groaned but clinked his glass against hers and took a shot of whatever fruity cocktail Jess had gotten him, "All right, all right. It's not that big a deal."

Jessica looked over at their other friend at the table, Mike, who was dressed pretty poorly as a zombie and said, "He acts all humble, but he scored a 174."

"Mmm," Mike hummed, knocking back another shot, "Is that good?"

"Scary good," Jess replied. Mike laughed, slapping Sam's shoulder.

"See?" he said, "There you go! You are a first-round draft pick. You can go to any law school you want!"

Sam smiled, "Actually, I got an interview here on Monday. If it goes okay, I think I got a shot at a full ride next year."

"Hey," Jessica scolded, brushing a lock of shaggy brown hair out of Sam's eyes, "It's gonna go great."

"It better," Sam responded. Mike laughed at the two of them.

"So, how does it feel to be the golden boy in your family?" he asked, sipping his beer.

Sam's smile fell, "I'm not, they don't know."

Mike gave him a stunned look, "I would be gloating! Why not?"

"Cause we're not exactly the Brady Bunch," Sam replied drily. He really wanted this conversation to be over.

"And I'm not exactly the Huxtables," Mike said sarcastically, then grinned, "More shots?"

"No!" Sam and Jess replied simultaneously. Mike wandered off anyway and Sam sighed in relief. He could always count on Mike to get distracted by booze.

Jessica rolled her eyes at his retreating figure and turned Sam's face back towards hers, "Seriously, I'm proud of you. And you're gonna knock 'em dead on Monday and score that full ride. I know it."

Sam shook his head slowly, reverently, "What would I do without you?" he murmured.

"Crash and burn," Jessica replied, giggling. She pulled Sam close and kissed him, and Sam couldn't help but pray he got that full ride because there was nowhere in the world he'd rather be.

…

_Later that night._

Sam was awoken by a loud thump from the kitchen.

He was alert immediately, looking over at Jessica's sleeping form beside him. She didn't even stir. Sam slipped silently from the bed and pressed himself against the wall, peeking around the corner. He saw nothing, so he moved into the next room, careful to keep his back to the wall at all times. His eyes zeroed in on a conspicuously open window in the living room.

There was an intruder in the apartment.

Sam stiffened when he heard the floorboards in the next room creak. He peered through the doorway cautiously and shot back when a tall, male figure passed by. He pressed himself against the wall and waited.

Opportunity struck when the door next to him creaked open and the intruder entered the room, back to Sam. Sam leapt forward out of the dark and attempted to get his arms around the burglar, but the man twisted his arms around and spun him at the last second, slamming him into the wall. The stranger was smaller than Sam by a few inches, but Sam was a 6'4 and built like a truck so that wasn't saying much. Sam recovered quickly and faced his attacker, landing a solid kick square in his chest. The man grabbed his foot and shoved him back, but Sam used that momentum to run into the next room. The intruder followed and threw a punch, Sam dodged and returned it with another kick, which missed. The stranger used Sam's superior size to grab him by the shirt when Sam's momentum took him too far and knock him down, landing on top of him with his hand at his throat.

"Woah, easy tiger!" chuckled the intruder. Recognition flooded through Sam.

"Dean?" he panted. He received a mocking laugh in response. Sam's relief was replaced suddenly with annoyance now that he knew the intruder was no burglar at all, but his older brother. He would have preferred the thief.

"You scared the crap out of me!" Sam yelled furiously.

"That's cause you're out of practice," Dean winked. Sam lunged at him, grabbing him by the collar to throw him down and pin him with a knee on his chest. Dean only chuckled at the switch in position.

"Or not. Get off me, Sasquatch."

Sam hesitated only for a second before pulling his brother to his feet and giving him a disapproving glare, "Dean, what the hell are you doing here?"

"I _was_ looking for a beer," Dean replied, patting Sam's shoulder. Sam opened his mouth to speak, some searing jab ready on the tip of his tongue.

"Sam?"

The lights flicked on and Jessica blinked owlishly at the scene before her. Dean's eyes widened at the sight of her, and he raised an eyebrow at Sam, who sighed.

"Jess, hey…" Sam started, glaring when he saw Dean staring at Jessica's bare legs, "Dean, this is my girlfriend, Jessica."

Jessica cocked her head, "Wait, your brother Dean?"

Dean grinned, "I love the Smurfs," he replied distractedly, gesturing towards Jessica's low-cut top, a graphic tee of Papa Smurf, "You know, you are completely out of my brother's league."

Jessica looked unimpressed and turned to leave, "Just let me put something on."

Dean put his hands up to stop her, "No, no! I wouldn't dream of it," he drawled with a lecherous grin "Seriously."

"Anyway, I gotta borrow your boyfriend here," Dean continued after a moment, giving Jess a dismissive nod, "Talk about some private family business, but nice meeting you." Jess smiled at him passive-aggressively and didn't move a single step.

Sam looked at his brother, and then at Jess, "No," he said, stepping to put his arm protectively around her shoulder, "No, whatever you want to say, you can say it in front of her."

"Okay," Dean shrugged, seemingly indifferent, "Um, Dad hasn't been home in a few days."

Sam rolled his eyes, "So he's working overtime on a 'Miller Time' shift. He'll stumble back in sooner or later." Dean simply stared at Sam, unblinking, then spoke slower.

"Dad's on a hunting trip, and he hasn't been home in a few days."

Sam tensed.

"Excuse us for a minute, Jess."

…

"Come on, Dean, you can't just break in in the middle of the night and expect me to hit the road with you," Sam stuttered, taking the steps two at a time to keep up with Dean's quick stride.

"You're not hearing me, Sammy," Dean groaned in frustration, "Dad's _missing_. I need you to help me find him."

"You remember the poltergeist in Amherst? The Devil's gate in Clifton? He was missing then, too," Sam said, trying to get ahead of Dean "He's always missing and he's _always_ fine."

Dean whirled around, "Not for this long," he said darkly, "Now, are you gonna come with me or not?"

"I'm not!"

"Why not?"

"I swore I was done hunting for good," Sam replied.

Dean rolled his eyes and kept walking, "Come on, it wasn't easy, but it wasn't that bad."

"Yeah?" Sam challenged, "When I told Dad I was afraid of the thing in my closet he gave me a .45!"

"Well, what was he supposed to do?"

"I was nine-years-old!" Sam said incredulously, "He was supposed to say 'Don't be afraid of the dark'!"

Dean looked at him like he had grown a second head, "'Don't be afraid of the dark'? Are you kidding me? Of course you should be afraid of the dark, you know what's out there!"

"Yeah, I know," Sam conceded, "But still – the way we grew up after Mom was killed and Dad's obsession to find the thing that killed her. But we still haven't found the damn thing! So we kill everything we _can_ find."

Dean nodded, back turned to Sam as he reached the door at the bottom of the stairwell "We save a lot of people doing it, too."

Sam scoffed, looking at Dean for a long moment before asking, "You think Mom would have wanted this for us?"

Dean didn't answer, instead choosing to slam the door to the parking lot shut behind them.

"The weapons training and melting the family silver into bullets?" Sam pressed, "Man, Dean, we were raised like warriors."

"So what are you gonna do?" Dean asked, "Are you just gonna live some normal, apple-pie life? Is that it?"

Sam shook his head, "No, not normal. Safe."

"And that's why you ran away," Dean said, more a statement than a question.

Sam quirked an eyebrow, "Ran away? I was just going to college. It was Dad who said if I was gonna go I should stay gone. And that's what I'm doing."

"Dad's in real trouble right now," Dean replied, "If he's not dead already. I can feel it."

Sam looked Dean in the eye and said nothing. Dean visibly swallowed his pride.

"Look, I can't do this alone," he pleaded.

"Yes, you can," Sam replied matter-of-factly.

"Yeah," Dean said, looking down at his car, "Well, I don't want to."

Sam tried his hardest to look unmoved but realized he was failing. He exhaled slowly.

"What was he hunting?"

Dean grinned like he had just won the lottery and popped the trunk of their dad's '67 Chevy Impala to reveal a massive stash of weapons.

"Alright," Dean said, cheerfully rifling through the mess, "now where did I put that…"

"So," Sam began, "when Dad left, why didn't you go with him?"

"I was working my own gig," Dean replied, "This voodoo thing down in New Orleans."

"Dad let you go on a hunting trip by yourself?" Sam scoffed, incredulous.

Dean shot him a wounded look, "I'm 26, dude!" Sam shrugged.

"Alright, here we go," Dean said, shaking his head and returning to the task, "So Dad was checking out this two-lane blacktop just outside of Jericho, California. About a month ago, this guy," he held up a picture, "disappeared. They found his car, but he'd vanished. Completely M.I.A."

Sam squinted at the file, "So? Maybe he was kidnapped."

"Yeah, well, here's another one in April, another one in December '04, '03, '98, '92—" Dean read, leafing through the files, "Ten of them over the past 20 years. All men, all same 5-mile stretch of road. Started happening more and more, so Dad went to go dig around."

"That was about three weeks ago," Dean finished, looking back up at Sam, "I hadn't heard from him since, which is bad enough, then I get this voicemail yesterday." He took out a tape recorder and pressed play. Their father's distorted voice echoed out.

"_Dean, something is starting to happen. I think it's serious_," a loud crackle, "_I need to try to figure out what's going on. Be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger._"

"You know if there's EVP on that?" asked Sam.

Dean grinned knowingly, "Not bad, Sammy. It's kinda like riding a bike, isn't it?" Sam chuckled lowly, "I slowed the message down and ran it through a GoldWave. Took out this hiss, and this is what I got." He pressed play again.

"_**I can never go home.**__"_

Sam shivered at the eerie voice, "Never go home?" Dean nodded and tossed the recorder back in the trunk, closing and locking it.

"You know in almost two years, I've never bothered you, never asked you for a thing," he said, looking at Sam expectantly. Sam sighed and spared a glance back towards the apartment building he called home.

_What's the harm?_ he thought, _I can go and be back by Monday, no problem. _Sam looked back down at Dean.

"All right, I'll go," he promised, "I'll help you find him, but I have to get back first thing Monday."

"What's first thing Monday?" Dean asked.

Sam hesitated, the said slowly, "I have an interview."

"What, a job interview?" Dean scoffed, "Skip it."

"It's a law-school interview," Sam replied, "and it's my whole future on a plate." Dean was silent for a moment.

"Law school?" he asked finally.

Sam nodded, "So we got a deal or not?"

"First thing Monday it is."

….

"Wait, so, you're taking off?" Jessica asked disbelievingly, "Is this about your dad? Is he alright?"

"Yeah," Sam assured, "You know, just a little family drama."

Jessica didn't look convinced, "But your brother said he was on some kind of hunting trip."

"Ah, yeah, he's just deer hunting up at the cabin," Sam said, feeling terrible for the lie, "and he's probably got Jim, Jack, and José along with him. We're just gonna go bring him back."

"What about the interview?" she asked.

"I'll make the interview," he replied hastily, "This is only for a couple of days."

"Sam!" Jessica shouted, then took a breath, "I mean, please! Just slow down for a second. You sure you're okay?"

Sam smiled and cupped her cheek, "Hey, everything's gonna be okay. I promise." He kissed her on the lips and then turned to leave.

She went to the door and called after him, "At least tell me where you're going!"

...

_November 1__st__, 2005. Jericho, California._

A car raced down Centennial Highway.

"Amy, I can't come over tonight," said Troy Squire, the driver, into his phone.

His girlfriend, Amy, whined, "_Why not?_"

"Because I got work in the morning, that's why!"

"_Come on, baby, just skip it._"

"Okay, if I miss it, my dad's gonna have my ass," Troy laughed. He squinted suddenly, seeing a flash beside the road. A hitchhiker.

"Hey, uh, Amy, let me call you back."

Troy hung up the phone and pulled up next to the stranger: a beautiful, dark-haired woman seemingly coming from a costume party. It was still technically Halloween night, after all. Troy rolled down the window.

"Car trouble or something?" the teen asked, though there was no other car to be seen.

The woman turned to face him, peering at him with deep, green eyes under long, dark lashes. She parted her lips and leaned down to the window of the car to speak in a low voice.

"**Take me home.**"

Troy was bewildered, "Sure, get in."

The girl stepped inside the car and leaned her head back against the seat, exposing her neck and her low-cut top. Troy was finding it difficult not to wonder if her breasts were as soft as they looked.

"So, uh," the boy began, clearing his throat, "you coming from a Halloween party or something?"

The girl licked her lips and did not answer.

"You know," he tried again, "a girl like you really shouldn't be alone out here."

She finally turned her gaze to him, looking first to his eyes and then his lips. Troy's hands were shaking as her hand dragged up her thigh, bunching up the skirt of her dress and exposing her core, soaking and irresistible. He felt himself begin to harden at the sight. The girl looked back into his eyes.

"**I'm with you**," she whispered.

Troy laughed nervously, turning away and rubbing at his temple. He couldn't believe this was happening and he didn't know what to do, but she made the decision for him, turning his chin back to face her. She moved his hand to touch her between her legs and he whimpered at the sensation.

"**Will you come home with me?**" she asked, moaning when he pressed deeper into her.

"Um," Troy laughed, voice cracking, "hell, yeah." And then he tore off into the night.

…

Troy had been buzzing with excitement the whole drive, but as they approached the decrepit, two-story farmhouse that the mystery girl had directed him to his excitement turned to confusion.

"Come on," he chuckled, "You don't live here." He turned to the girl, but she was staring out the window forlornly.

"**I can never go home.**"

"What?" Troy asked, peering at the house, "What are you talking about? Nobody even lives here."

"Where do you really live?" he asked, turning back to the girl. His breath punched out of him.

She was gone.

He looked around trying to spot her, his lust cooling rapidly. He stepped out of the car to get a better look, but there was no one around. This had to be some kind of sick joke.

"That was good. Joke's over, okay?" he called out, "You want me to leave?"

He received no answer, so he walked over to one of the house's many broken windows. The house was abandoned and clearly in no condition to be habitable. Troy was beginning to get the creeps.

"Hello?" he called again. The silence was eerie.

Suddenly, a shape flew at him out of the dark. He fell backward, screaming. He scrambled to his feet and ran as quickly as he could back to his car, turned it on, and got the hell out of there. His pulse was racing. The girl was _not_ hot enough to be worth the trouble. For a moment, he felt bad for leaving her behind, but fear overrode his senses and kept him driving. He checked his rearview mirror…

…and screamed at the ghostly pale face staring back at him.

Troy slammed on the brakes, losing control of the car and sending him plunging through a caution barrier and onto Centennial Bridge. The car swerved to a stop mere feet from the edge.

That was the last thing he saw before the phantom claws dug into him.

...

_November 1__st__, 2005. A few miles outside of Jericho, California._

Sam was squinting at a road map in the passenger seat of Dean's car. They had pulled over at a gas station off Highway 69 so they could gas up. And so Dean could take a leak.

Speak of the devil, Dean's voice called out, "Hey, you want breakfast?" he asked, waving around a bag of gas station chips.

"No, thanks," Sam replied, rolling his eyes and turning back to the map, "How'd you pay for that stuff? You and Dad still running credit card scams?"

"Yeah, well, hunting ain't exactly a pro-ball career," Dean said, closing the gas tank, "Besides, all we do is apply. Not our fault they send us the cards."

"Yeah," Sam challenged, "and what names did you write on the application this time?"

Dean grinned widely, "Bert Aframian and his devilishly handsome son, Hector. Scored two cards out of the deal."

Sam scoffed, "Sounds about right," he said, shaking his head, "I swear, man, you have got to update your cassette tape collection."

"Why?" Dean asked, offended.

"Well, for one, they're cassette tapes," Sam replied, throwing one of those said tapes at Dean, "And two – Black Sabbath? Motorhead? Metallica? It's the greatest hits of Mullet Rock."

Dean grunted, starting the car, "House rules, Sammy – driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole."

Sam rolled his eyes, "You know, Sammy is a chubby 12-year-old. It's Sam, okay?

Dean turned up the music to a painfully loud volume and yelled, "Sorry, Sammy, I can't hear you! The music's too loud!"

…

A few minutes later, when he had convinced his asshole brother to turn the music down, Sam pulled out the local yellow pages they had picked up from the gas station and made a couple of phone calls.

"Thank you," Sam said to the doctor, clicking the "End Call" button on his phone before turning to Dean, "Alright, so there's no one matching Dad's description at the hospital or morgue. So that's something, I guess."

Dean made an affirmative noise, attention drawn by something further up the road. A number of police cars swarmed a dilapidated bridge up to the left.

"Check it out," said Dean, pulling over close to the scene. He reached over to the glove department and popped it open, revealing a box filled with dozens fake IDs for him, their father, and Sam. He picked two out labeled "US Marshal" and winked at Sam, getting out of the car. Sam could only follow, jaw dropped.

"Dude, we're impersonating Feds now?" he asked, astonished.

Dean only grinned, "Take your badge, Marshal."

...

In late fall, even in a place like Jericho, the sun's heat failed to turn away the biting winds. Lucy was shivering in her flannel coat.

Bobby had given her good information, though.

Scanning the desert-like sand, she watched the police comb the river below from her spot perched upon the hood of her rental car. One cop on the bridge called down to the ones below, asking if they had found anything. The response was negative. All she could gather was that another man had disappeared last night, mysteriously and without a trace just like the other ten, but was left with frustratingly little else to go on and no leads. There was no connection between the victims that she could see, nothing except the fact that they were all men. She was trying to brainstorm the best approach to getting the information she needed when two newcomers arrived on the scene, stepping out of a black Chevy. Her heart stopped.

They were tall, both standing at least at six feet, and built like tanks. One was shorter, but more chiseled with dark-blonde, Ivy-league hair and a worn leather jacket. The other was massive, maybe 6'4 or 6'5, but dressed like a schoolboy in a hoodie and jeans and shaggy brown hair. They definitely didn't look like cops, but they approached the scene like they were meant to be there. However, that's not what alarmed Lucy the most. She couldn't take her eyes off the taller boy.

_That's the boy from my dream._

She was sure of it. She had been having that dream for weeks now and she remembered every part of it vividly. That boy was the one on the bed in her nightmare, the one who found the corpse on the ceiling and burned alive.

_I read once that every face in your dreams is a face you've seen somewhere,_ she thought. _We've probably met before. _

She wasn't doing a very good job of convincing herself.

As the pair approached the crime scene, Lucy slid closer with them. She stood by the other onlookers, near enough to hear but not conspicuously so.

"The kid, Troy," said one cop, "he's dating your daughter, isn't he? How is she?"

"Putting up missing posters all over town," replied the other. Lucy mentally noted that information, then the first of the two strangers spoke, his voice a deep, low timbre.

"You fellas had another one like this last month, didn't you?" he asked. Both cops turned to look at the newcomers, noticing them as if for the first time.

"And who are you?" one asked.

The stranger flashed a badge, "Federal Marshals."

The cop eyed him suspiciously, "You two are a little young for Marshals, aren't you?" he asked.

The Marshal chuckled, "Thanks, that's awfully kind of you. You did have another one just like this, correct?"

"Yeah, that's right," the cop replied, "About a mile up the road. There have been others before that."

The boy from her dream spoke up, his voice softer than the other, "So this victim, you knew him?"

The man nodded, "A town like this, everybody knows everybody."

"Any connection between the victims besides that they're all men?" asked the first stranger. Lucy's ears perked up at this, waiting to hear the answer.

"No," said the cop, to her dismay, "Not so far as we can tell."

"So what's the theory?" asked the boy from her dream.

"Honestly," the cop admitted, "we don't know. Serial murder, kidnapping ring."

The other Marshal laughed, unkindly, "Well, that is exactly the kind of crack police work I'd expect out of you guys—" he started, cutting himself off with a grunt of pain. The officer narrowed his eyes suspiciously at them.

"Thank you for your time," the dream-boy said quickly, before walking away from the scene with his companion close behind, "Gentlemen." Lucy pressed herself against the bridge as they approached to remain unnoticed.

Once they were far enough away from the scene, the shorter man slapped the taller across the back of the head.

"Ow!" the boy from her nightmare exclaimed, "What was that for?"

"Why'd you step on my foot?" the other man asked.

"Why'd you have to talk to the police like that?" came the retort.

"Come on," the first man said, incredulous, "They don't really know what's going on. We're all alone on this. I mean, if we're gonna find Dad, we're gonna have to get to the bottom of this thing ourselves."

The taller boy cleared his throat, a signal to silence the other, and glanced over his shoulder. Another policeman, the sheriff, accompanied by two FBI agents, had arrived and overheard their entire conversation. He raised an eyebrow at the two men.

"Can I help you boys with something?" he asked.

The shorter guy shook his head, "No, sir. We were just leaving. Agent Mulder. Agent Scully," he said in mock seriousness, nodding to each of the FBI agents as he got in his car. Within moments the two had the crime scene in their rearview mirror. The sheriff watched them go.

_Marshals my ass. _

Lucy smiled to herself, taking a fake reporter license out of her wallet. She had found out more about this case from eavesdropping on those two than she ever would have on her own. Now she had a place to start. There was still the matter of her nightmare, but Lucy wasn't too worried about losing the boy's trail.

They would cross paths again.

…

A cold wind wound its way through Main Street, blowing a stray piece of light blonde hair that had come out of the messy updo Lucy wore into her face. She scanned the street, lifting a hand to tuck it behind her ear, and replayed the description the policeman had given her in her head one more time.

Short, brown hair, _copious_ amounts of eyeliner, and pretty. The missing boy's girlfriend and a key witness to his disappearance. Lucy's gaze landed on a girl down the street putting up posters.

_Found you._

Lucy caught up with the girl and tapped her shoulder, "You must be Amy."

"Yeah," she replied, eyeing Lucy warily. The pink-tinted sheets of paper she held in her hands showed a printed picture of the missing kid, Troy Squire.

Lucy smiled, "Troy told me about you. I'm his Aunt Lucinda."

The girl frowned, looking Lucy up and down, "He never mentioned you to me,"

Lucy laughed, "Well, that's Troy I guess. I'm not around much, I live up in Modesto," the lie came easily, "I'm looking for him, too, so I'm kind of asking around." At this another girl, dark-haired and tall, spotted their exchange, crossed the street and put a protective hand on Amy's shoulder. She asked Amy if she was okay, to which Amy nodded, and leveled a suspicious glare at Lucy.

"Do you mind if I ask you a couple of questions?" Lucy asked, cheerfully ignoring her.

…

They had situated themselves in a cozy diner to get out of the early-November chill – Lucy, Amy, and her friend Taylor – when Amy finally began to speak:

"I was on the phone with Troy," she said, hesitant, "He was driving home. He said he would call me right back, and he never did."

"He didn't say anything strange or out of the ordinary?" Lucy probed.

She shook her head, "No, nothing I can remember."

"It's just—" Lucy looked around the diner and leaned in conspiratorially, "the way Troy disappeared – something's not right. Do you know what I mean?"

When Amy and Taylor looked at each other and didn't answer she knew she had hit the jackpot.

"What is it?" she pressed.

"Well it's just, I mean, with all these guys going missing," Taylor said slowly, "people talk."

"What do they talk about?" Lucy asked. Taylor and Amy shifted uncomfortably.

"It's kind of this local legend," Taylor replied, sighing, "This one girl, she got murdered out on Centennial like decades ago. Well, supposedly, she's still out there. She hitchhikes, and whoever picks her up – well, they disappear forever."

_Jackpot indeed._

…

"The desktops are upstairs on the right," said the librarian.

Lucy smiled kindly, "Thank you."

She made her way up the stairs, mumbling the directions the woman had given her under her breath. Lucy was at the local library, typically her first stop when researching urban legends or suspicious deaths. Hopefully, if Amy and Taylor were right, she would find something here that would wrap the case up quick. She turned the corner, spotting a room that said "Media" on the door. Softly, she opened it and did a double take.

The men from the crime scene – the one from her nightmare included – were crowded around a computer with their backs to her. The shorter one typed something into the database, then groaned in frustration.

"Let me try," nightmare-boy whispered, reaching for the keyboard.

The other man slapped his hands away, "I got it."

Nightmare-boy pushed the other man's chair away, ignoring his cry of "Dude!", and took his place at the keyboard. The other man punched him hard in the shoulder.

"You are such a control freak," he grumbled.

Silently, Lucy crept to a desktop behind them and not-so-subtly peeked over their shoulders to see what they were researching.

"**Girl Murdered Hitchhiking" **

All at once, the pieces clicked into place. The fake identities, the lying to the cops, the researching murdered girls – all of it was right out of Lucy's own bag of tricks.

_They're hunters._

Slowly, an idea forming in her head, she grinned.

Sam and Dean hunched over a library desktop, surveying the room to make sure no one was watching. Cautiously, Dean dropped his gaze and typed "Female Murder Hitchhiking" into the catalog search bar and waited. Nothing. Dean took a moment to think and replaced the word "Hitchhiking" with "Centennial Highway". No results found. Dean groaned in frustration.

"Let me try," Sam suggested, reaching for the keyboard.

Dean smacked his hand, "I got it." Sam rolled his eyes and pushed Dean's chair, sending him spinning.

"Dude!" he exclaimed, punching Sam's arm, "You're such a control freak."

Sam tried different variations of what they were looking for: "Woman Murder Centennial Highway"; "Girl Murdered Hitchhiking"; "Accident on Centennial Highway". None produced the results they were looking for.

"Try suicide," came a curious voice from behind. Sam and Dean whipped around.

A woman stood just behind them – _how long had she been there? _\- peering down at their screen. She seemed unfazed by their shock, if she noticed it at all.

"Angry spirits are born out of violent death," she explained, "It doesn't have to be murder necessarily – try suicide." She patted the keyboard once more and then turned and walked away. The two brothers exchanged a baffled look and Sam turned to the computer, entering "Female Suicide Centennial Highway".

One result.

Sam looked wide-eyed at his brother, "This was 1981. Constance Welch, 24 years old, jumps off Sylvania Bridge, drowns in the river.

"Does it say why she did it?" Dean asked.

"Yeah," Sam nodded, "An hour before they found her, she calls 911. Her two little kids are in the bathtub. She leaves them alone for a minute, and when she comes back, they aren't breathing. Both die." Dean made a contemplative sound.

"'Our babies were gone and Constance just couldn't bear it,' said husband, Joseph Welch," quoted Sam, gesturing to a picture on the screen.

Dean leaned in, pointing with a pen, "That bridge look familiar to you?"

The two brothers exchanged a look with each other, and then back towards the still-open door, before shooting up and running to track down that mystery woman.

...

They didn't have to go far.

They found her leaning against a column just outside the library – a beautiful, blue-eyed woman of medium height with hair so blonde it was almost white – waiting, and smirking. She waved playfully when they came stumbling out of the door, hot on her trail.

"Find what you were looking for?" she asked, a teasing note to her voice. Dean levelled a lecherous grin her way, trying to regain his composure, but Sam narrowed his eyes in suspicion.

"Who are you?" he demanded, "How do you know about spirits?"

She cocked her head at him, "The same way you do, I would guess. Someone taught me. I'm a hunter, like you."

"Oh, great," Dean muttered under his breath. Both Sam and the woman ignored him.

"How did you know to look for a suicide?" Sam asked.

"I didn't," she replied casually, "I came into the library looking for a murder, too. I talked to the victim's girlfriend, you see, who told me about this local legend. But when I came in, I saw what you two were researching and figured that, since murder wasn't getting any results, there's really only one other option for getting a violent spirit. Suicide."

"How did you know we were hunters?" Dean piped up curiously, giving her a suspicious once-over.

She raised an eyebrow at him and smirked, "When a boy goes missing, not many people start their suspect list with a dead woman," she drawled, "And I saw you two this morning, back at the crime scene, pretending to be Feds. I figured out who you were because I would have done the same thing." Dean relaxed only marginally.

"So," she prodded, "what did you find?"

"A woman—" Sam started before Dean cut him off.

"Okay, hold on," he said, "We appreciate the tip, but my brother and I don't need help. You seem like a nice girl, but we don't know you and you don't know us. It's best if we just stay out of each other's hair." Sam looked at Dean in disbelief and turned to the girl with an apology already on his tongue.

But, surprisingly enough, she just laughed and hooked her thumbs in her pockets, "Sure. If that's how you want to play it, I'll get out of your way. But I'm on this case and I'm staying on this case, so we have two options here: we can go our separate ways and this becomes a race to see who can kill the thing first. Someone is gonna be wasting their time, and," she said lightly, bulldozing over whatever Dean was about to say, "let's not forget who had the breakthrough and who was sitting at the computer hopelessly mashing keys. Or, we have option two," she stepped closer to Dean so they were almost chest to chest and smiled up at him.

"We can put away the ruler, zip up our pants, and get the job done faster as a team," she intoned slowly, as if speaking to a child. Sam laughed out loud at this and looked at Dean, who was a little red in the face but was clearly seeing more to this girl than he had been a few moments before.

"As a team, then," he conceded, dipping his head. The woman smiled and stepped back.

Sam extended his hand, "I'm Sam Winchester. The ass is my brother, Dean."

"Nice to meet you, Sam and Dean," she beamed, shaking his hand, "I'm Lucy. Lucy Harvelle," she peered up at Sam for a moment, her smile faltering a bit, "I wouldn't happen to have met you somewhere before, right, Sam?"

Sam furrowed his brow, "I don't think so, no. Why do you ask?"

She looked at him thoughtfully for just a second longer before shaking her head, "No reason. You just looked familiar, is all. Now what can you tell me about this case?"

...

"So this is where Constance took the swan dive," Dean said, peering over the side of the bridge. A cold wind blew up off the water and chilled Lucy to the bone. She shoved her hands in her pockets and tried to hold back a shiver.

After explaining the nature of the victim's, Constance Welch's, death to her, the three of them reasoned that the most obvious next step was to visit the actual place she jumped from.

Which happened to be the same creepy, rickety old bridge from this morning. Significantly creepier and ricketier in the middle of the night.

Sam sidled up between Dean and Lucy, "So you think Dad would have been here?" he asked.

Dean shrugged, "Well, he's chasing the same story, and we're chasing him."

"Your father?" Lucy asked, looking curiously between them. Dean sighed in frustration, but Sam nodded.

"A hunter, like us," he supplied, "He's been AWOL for a few days. We're looking for him." A sudden spark of recognition jolted Lucy. She couldn't believe she didn't realize it sooner.

"Your father is John Winchester," she said, a little dumbly. Both boys whirled on her in shock.

"You know him?" Sam asked, at the same time Dean said, "Where is he?"

Lucy threw her hands up in surrender, "I've met him before, a long time ago, but I don't know where he is now."

And that was true. Lucy hadn't seen hide nor hair of John Winchester since she was thirteen, nearly ten years ago. He had been grim that night, loading guns and packing bags - preparing for a hunt. He promised he would come back, that he would keep _him _safe. But John had never returned.

Neither did _he_.

Lucy shook her head to dispel the thought. That wasn't John's fault, it was an accident. Lucy had made mistakes too, with worse consequences. She understood.

Her heart throbbed painfully in her chest.

Sam nodded slowly, still curious. Dean's shoulders slumped and he let out a frustrated huff.

"I'm sorry," Lucy supplied honestly.

Dean waved her off, "Don't worry about it. I just hoped..." he trailed off.

She nodded in understanding, "Okay, so now what?"

"Now," Dean replied, stepping away from the railing and walking back toward his car, "we keep digging till we find him. It might take a while."

Sam sighed, "Dean, I told you I've got to get back by—"

"Monday," Dean said, cutting him off, "Right. The interview. Yeah, I forgot."

Lucy quirked a brow at Sam, "Interview?"

He nodded, "Law school. I have a real shot at a full ride."

"Damn!" she exclaimed, "Congratulations. I've never known a hunter to just _get out_."

"Neither have I," Dean agreed less enthusiastically, "You're really serious about this, aren't you? You think you're just gonna become some lawyer? Marry your girl?" Lucy's heart sank.

Sam had a girlfriend. The burning woman's image stuck persistently in her mind's eye.

Sam shrugged, not noticing Lucy's sudden discomfort, "Maybe. Why not?"

"Does Jessica know the truth about you? Does she know about the things you've done?"

"No," Sam snapped, "and she's not ever going to."

Dean raised an eyebrow, "Well, that's healthy. You can pretend all you want, Sammy, but sooner or later you're gonna have to face up to who you really are." He turned back around and began walking.

Sam ran to catch up to him, "And who's that?"

Dean gestured to himself and Lucy, "One of us."

"No," Sam scoffed, stopping Dean, "I'm not like you. This is not going to be my life."

"Well, you have a responsibility."

"To Dad and his crusade? If it weren't for pictures, I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like," Sam said, "What difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone and she isn't coming back."

It happened in the blink of an eye. One moment Sam was standing there in front of Dean and Lucy, the next, Dean had him by the collar, pinned to the bridge. He looked ready to start throwing punches.

"Guys! Break it up!" she shouted. Mentally Lucy lamented whatever choices had led her to getting stuck with the Brady Bunch's family drama.

Dean stared at Sam for a moment, silent, then said: "Don't talk about her like that," and let him go. To this, Sam had nothing to say. Dean turned on his heel and made to walk away, but froze as his eyes locked on something over Lucy's shoulder.

"Guys," he said lowly.

Sam's eyes widened as he noticed whatever it was too and moved to stand next to him. Lucy turned to the sight of a beautiful woman who _definitely_ had not been there before, presumably Constance Welch in all her undead glory, standing on her tiptoes on the edge of the bridge. She cast only a single glance at the three of them, her gaze filled with something like longing, before leaning forward and tipping off the edge.

Lucy didn't hesitate before sprinting over to the other side of the bridge, the boys hot on her heels. The bars pressed hard against her ribs as she peered over the side, looking for any sign of the woman. Nothing. Not a splash, not even a sound.

"Where'd she go?" Dean asked.

"I don't know," Sam replied, searching. The sound of a car engine sputtering to life had them all whirling around.

"What the-" Dean exclaimed.

Dean's Impala had started and was revving its engine at them. Lucy's stomach dropped, dread filling her veins.

"Who's driving your car?" she asked, already knowing the answer. Dean kept his eyes locked on the Impala as he pulled his keys out of his pocket.

They all jumped into action at the sound of screeching tires. The Impala came barreling towards them at full speed as the three of them dashed down the bridge, but they couldn't outrun a car. Running out of options and bridge, Lucy decided on the best of a buffet of bad ideas.

"Over the side!" she yelled.

"Go!" Sam agreed, already grabbing onto the steel bars that frame the bridge. Dean is quick to follow his lead. The brothers disappear over the side and, just as Lucy can feel the push of air against the backs of her legs, she vaults over the railing to safety. Her sweat-slick hands were too clammy to get a good hold on any part of the bridge, however, and her heart leapt in panic as she began to fall-

A hand grabbed her wrist.

Lucy's shoulder jolted painfully at the shock but relief flooded her system regardless. Sam, straddling the steel beam under the bridge, reached down with his other hand to pull her up to safety. As soon as her legs were wrapped around something solid, Lucy let out the shaky breath she had been holding. For a moment, the two just sat there, panting.

"Thanks," Lucy said finally, a little breathless.

"Don't mention it," Sam replied, equally winded. The car engine had gone quiet and the only noise left in the night was the gentle burble of the river below. Sam took in their surroundings and his eyes went wide with sudden panic.

"Dean?!" he cried. Lucy scanned the bridge where Sam had been looking and realized that Dean wasn't there, which meant he had fallen into the icy-cold water dozens of feet below.

"Dean!" she called, her voice joining Sam's panicked one.

A tired voice rang out from below, "What?" Sam and Lucy looked down to the muddy figure crawling onto the riverbank.

Sam sighed with relief, "Hey, are you all right?" Dean flipped onto his back with a horrible squelching sound and held up an "okay" sign.

"I'm super," he panted sarcastically.

Blame it on the near-death experience, but Lucy let out a hysterical giggle. Sam looked at her for a moment, stunned, and then threw his head back and laughed so hard he shook.

...

Later, after she and Sam had climbed back up onto the bridge and fished Dean out of the water like an old boot, Lucy was disinfecting a pretty nasty cut on Sam's hand while Dean gave his car a cursory check.

"Car okay?" she asked. Dean slammed the trunk and nodded, seemingly satisfied with what he found.

"Yeah, whatever she did to it, it seems alright now," he replied, "That Constance chick—what a bitch!" he yelled into the night.

Sam nodded his agreement, "Well, she doesn't want us digging around, that's for sure," he looked at Dean, who was currently sitting on the trunk trying to shake as much mud off as he could, "So, where's the trail go from here, genius?" Dean threw his arms up in a shrug, only succeeding in spraying more mud over himself and the car. Sam sniffed, lurching back from the splash zone.

"You smell like a toilet," he said, grimacing. Lucy had to agree.

...

The only thing funnier than watching Dean walk around looking like the Abominable Mudman was watching him purchase a hotel room while looking like the Abominable Mudman.

"One room please. Two queens," he said, smacking down his dirt-crusted Visa like he was daring the man behind the desk to say anything about his appearance. The man only looked mildly disgusted before snatching up the card and peering at it. Lucy supposed if you ran a motel you'd probably seen worse.

The guy looked curiously at the card, and then at Dean, "You guys having a reunion or something?"

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, confused.

"That other guy, Bert Aframian," the clerk clarified, "He came in and bought out a room for the whole month."

Sam and Dean shared a knowing look.

...

"So why are we breaking into this guy's hotel room?" Lucy asked. Sam was currently bent over the lock of "Bert Aframian's" hotel room door while Dean stood watch. Sam made a triumphant sound as the it clicked open.

"It's one of our dad's aliases, he's been here," he replied, grabbing Dean by the collar and dragging him into the room. She let out a soft "oh" as she followed them inside.

_Yeah, this is the John she remembers_.

Newspaper clippings, journal entries, and images of ghosts and monsters were taped up all over the walls, even the ceiling and floor, covered in unfamiliar symbols. A rushed circle of salt was drawn in the middle of the room, next to a suitcase that was knocked over and a shotgun that lay propped up against the wall, untouched. Anyone else coming in here would think this was the room of a serial killer or some dissociated Satan-worshipper. To Lucy, the contents of this room showed a hunter who was very thorough. And very scared.

Dean sniffed at a half-eaten cheeseburger on the nightstand and grimaced, "I don't think he's been here for a couple days, at least," he said, disgusted.

Sam nodded his agreement, running a finger through the salt ring, "Salt? Cat's Eye shells? He was worried."

"Trying to keep something from coming in," Lucy finished, thoughtful, "What do we have here?"

Dean followed Lucy's gaze to the wall above him where a number of pictures, news clippings, and "missing person" posters were plastered, all labelled by names written above them in red marker and tape. He straightened, immediately interested.

"Centennial highway victims," he answered, curious, "I don't _get it_. I mean, different men, different jobs, ages, ethnicities. There's always a connection, right? What do these guys have in common?" Lucy shrugged. Sam scoffed lightly behind them.

"Dad figured it out," he murmured, flicking on a lamp. Dean and Lucy turned around to see him peering at a particular scrap of paper taped up on the wall.

"What do you mean?" Dean asked. Lucy moved towards Sam to get a better look at what he was peering at.

"He found the same article we did," Sam supplied, nodding towards the printout in question: '**Suicide on Centennial**', "_Constance Welch_. She's a Woman in White." Lucy loosed a breath, the pieces clicking together in her mind.

Dean's gaze shifted to the images of the missing in understanding, "You sly dogs," he said, before turning back around, "Alright, so if we're dealing with a Woman in White, Dad would have found the corpse and destroyed it."

"She might have another weakness," Lucy said, pondering.

Dean crossed to her and Sam, shaking his head, "No, Dad would want to make sure. He'd dig her up," he squinted at the article, "Does it say where she's buried?"

Sam shook his head, "No, not that I can tell. If I were Dad, though, I would go ask her husband," he tapped a man's picture on the clipping, "If he's still alive."

Dean made a noise of agreement, before straightening and making his way towards the bathroom door, "Hey, why don't you two see if you can find an address. I'm gonna go get cleaned up."

"Hey, Dean," Sam called, stopping him, "What I said earlier, about Mom and Dad – I'm sorry."

Dean winced and put up a hand to stop him, "No chick-flick moments."

Lucy rolled her eyes and fake coughed to cover her mumbling, "Jerk."

Not very well, Dean heard and glared at her, "Bitch."

Sam rolled his eyes, chuckling, "Alright," he said, before Lucy could throw something heavy at his brother. Dean grinned like an idiot and disappeared into the bathroom.

Lucy looked at Sam, "I find it hard to believe that you two are related."

"So do I," Sam replied, laughing.

Lucy plopped down on the chair by the window, rifling through some papers. She looked back up when Sam didn't join her, ready to ask what he was doing, when she saw he seemed distracted by something on the mirror. A photograph. She squinted at it.

A photograph of John Winchester and two boys. The way Sam stared at it was almost... mournful.

Lucy turned away and got back to work.

…

Hours later, Sam was listening to a voicemail on his phone and Lucy was laying on the floor, head swimming. After ages of combing through newspaper article after newspaper article and report after report, she and Sam had finally found Mr. Welch's address.

Dean emerged from the bathroom, fresh as a daisy after taking his sweet time, and said, "Hey, I'm starving. I'm gonna grab a little something to eat at that diner down the street. Either of you want anything?"

Lucy perked up, "Well, if Mr. Aframian doesn't mind, I'd like a coffee and a BLT." Dean nodded and jerked his chin in Sam's direction.

Sam just shook his head, "Not for me."

"You sure? Aframian's buying," he asked, gesturing towards Lucy. Sam made an assertive noise. Dean shrugged and, putting on his jacket, walked out the door.

Lucy looked at Sam and said, "You should eat. Keep your strength up."

Sam made a dismissive noise, "I'll be fine. I'm not that hungry."

Lucy, chewing on her lip, mentally revised her earlier plan to stay out of Winchester business as much as humanly possible; If these two were going to be so goddamn dramatic, it was going to be hard not to get involved. Besides, this was the first time she had been alone with Sam, really alone, since they met. For a couple of hours she was able to bury her nose in the case and forget that she had been dreaming about this guy burning alive for weeks.

_Should I tell him?_

Lucy shook that thought out of her head. Of course she couldn't tell him, how do you even go about starting that conversation? She looked at Sam out of the corner of her eye, sitting on the edge of the bed and fully distracted by texting someone. Could it be the boy in her nightmare just _looked _like Sam? And she was just making this a bigger deal than it was? Lucy sighed. No, it was him, without a doubt. Maybe she had seen him somewhere before and he was just the lucky winner, scoring the lead role in her freaky dream over of all the other men she had ever met? That would make sense. Lucy knew his dad. Maybe this was just one huge coincidence.

"Sam," Lucy asked hesitantly, "Are you _sure _we've never met before?"

Sam looked up at her, puzzled, "Pretty sure. I think I would have remembered you."

"But maybe we bumped into each other on a hunt or something. Maybe we didn't introduce ourselves but, like, saw each other?"

"I haven't been a hunter in a long time," Sam replied, shaking his head, "This is kind of an exception for me, my dad being involved and all. After we wrap up here, I'm going back to Stanford and forgetting about all of this."

"Right," Lucy said, deflating, "But what if-"

Sam interrupted her, "Why are you so sure we've met before?"

"Well, uh, you see," Lucy floundered for an answer, "You just seem really familiar. Like _really _familiar."

"Huh," Sam said, still skeptical, "Well, you know my dad. Maybe you saw a picture of me."

Lucy shook her head, "When I said I hadn't seen your dad in a long time, I meant like ten years."

Sam looked at her curiously, "You must have been just a kid, how did you know him?"

"Uh," Lucy didn't want to lie but she definitely couldn't tell him _that _story, "My parents are hunters. Your dad would come around now and again to visit. Sometimes they would work together." Lucy breathed an internal sigh of relief. It wasn't technically false.

"My dad? Work with others?" Sam scoffed, "I can hardly believe it."

Lucy laughed, "It's true. He would bring my sisters and I presents sometimes, too, when he visited."

"Your whole family hunts?"

"Yeah, well, sort of," Lucy admitted, "Technically my parents aren't my real parents. My birth parents died when I was a baby, and neither of them knew anything about the supernatural world. My dad was my birth mom's brother and he adopted my sister and me. So my parents, or the only parents I know, are actually my aunt and uncle, and they raised us as hunters."

Sam looked stricken, "I'm sorry if I brought up any bad memories."

"Don't worry, I'm sure my parents were good people, but I don't remember them, good or bad," Lucy assured, ignoring the sudden but brief ache in her heart. He did bring up bad memories, but not the ones he thought.

Sam nodded, "I understand. I'm sure you picked up by now that my mom died when Dean and I were really young, too."

Lucy nodded, smiling without humor, "Look at how much we have in common."

Sam let out a little laugh at the morbid joke and Lucy felt just a little more at ease. Sure, it was weird that she had been having dreams about Sam, but her job was weird. Her life was weird. Sam was sitting right here in front of her, laughing at a joke and looking perfectly healthy and not burnt to a crisp. She was getting worked up over nothing, obviously the events in her dream hadn't actually happened. This thought momentarily put Lucy at ease. Then she stiffened as another, even worse, idea come to her.

Yet. The events in her dream hadn't actually happened _yet_.

_But there's no way, right?_

She had to be sure, "Sam," she started, and he looked up, "Do you-"

At this moment Lucy was interrupted by a loud ring. Sam glanced down and the cell phone in his hand and his face twisted with confusion. He shot a single apologetic look at Lucy before picking up.

"What?" he asked the other person, unimpressed. Lucy couldn't hear the reply, but Sam suddenly stiffened and shot up from the bed.

"What about you?" he asked lowly, glancing suspiciously at the closed blinds. Lucy wasn't sure exactly what was happening, but she followed his lead, peeking through the curtains. The person on the other end of the phone was probably Dean, and if Dean was in trouble, they all were in trouble.

Dean evidently didn't give Sam the answer he wanted and hung up on him. Sam snapped his phone shut with a huff.

"Dean said we have police on us. See anything?" he asked me. I squinted against the light. Dean was a ways off talking to two cops. One of them broke off and started walking down the hill towards the room. Lucy jerked back from the window.

"Cop inbound, time to go," she whispered harshly, grabbing Sam's arm and dragging him towards the bathroom. She hoped, distantly, that they could squeeze his bulky 6'4 frame through the window.

…

Dean shut his phone off, hoping that he had bought Sam and Lucy enough of a head start to get out, and turned to the two cops who had made their way over to him, smiling innocently.

"Problem, officers?" he asked in faked confusion. The cops looked unimpressed.

"Where're your partners?" one asked, crossing his arms.

"Partners? What-" Dean was laying it on thick, "what partners?"

The same cop rolled his eyes and gestured for the other to go and search the motel room before turning back to Dean.

"So fake U.S. Marshal, fake credit cards. You got anything that's real?" he asked.

Dean gave the man a dazzling smile and said, "My boobs."

Which was the last thing he said before he was handcuffed in a cop car and having his rights read to him.

…

Despite what TV makes it look like, getting arrested is _boring_.

Dean had been sitting in the same monochrome interrogation room for an hour while the PD filed paperwork with nothing to do but twiddle his thumbs and see how far across the room he could spit. His record was five and a half feet. He didn't actually know if that's how far he could spit because he couldn't exactly get up and measure, but it sounded like a plenty impressive number to tell Sam later.

Finally, as Dean was wondering if he could start a fire in the interrogation room with the limited movement and materials he had, the same rotund sheriff who had been suspicious of them at the crime scene walked in to alleviate his boredom, planting a box of files on the table.

"So," the man asked, "you wanna give us your real name?"

"I told you. It's Nugent, Ted Nugent," Dean replied, grinning.

The sheriff was unmoved, "I'm not sure you realize just how much trouble you're in here.

"We talking like misdemeanor kind of trouble or, ah, 'squeal like a pig' trouble?'"

"You got the faces of ten missing persons taped to your wall," the man continued as if Dean hadn't spoken, "along with a whole lot of Satanic mumbo jumbo. Boy, you are officially a suspect."

"That makes sense," Dean replied sarcastically, "'Cause when the first one went missing in '82 I was three."

The cop shrugged, "I know you got partners. One of them's an older guy. Maybe he started the whole thing." Dean shut his eyes in frustration, lamenting the _stupidity _of cops. Why couldn't they see that he was _trying to help them_. While Dean was distracted, the sheriff pulled something from the box.

"So tell me... _Dean_..." he said, throwing a familiar book down on the table, "Is this his?" and Dean had to concentrate to keep from visibly reacting to sight his father's journal.

_Where did this douche even find it?_

Apparently Dean didn't come off so indifferent as he thought because the sheriff grinned and sat on the edge of the table, pleased with whatever he saw in Dean's face and said, "I thought that might be your name," he said, flipping the book open through pages and pages of supernatural wisdom, "See, I leafed through this – what little I could make out, I mean it's nine kinds of crazy – but I found this too," he finished, stopping on a blank page and flipping it around for Dean to see. Dean's jaw tightened.

It wasn't blank. Dean's name was written in blocky letters above a set of numbers, 35-111, and circled. This was what his dad had wanted him to find in Jericho.

"Now, you are staying right here until you tell me exactly what the hell that," the cop tapped the page, "means." Dean felt a smile working its way onto his face. Sure he had been caught off guard for a second, but now it was time to do what Dean did best.

Make an ass of himself.

…

Sam knocked softly on the door in front of them. The address that Lucy had pulled for Constance's husband was right off the side of a scrapyard and everything in and around the ramshackle trailer seemed ready to fall apart at the slightest gust of wind. Lucy burrowed her hands deeper into her pockets to keep them warm while they waited.

"What if he's not home?" she asked, sniffling.

"Then we'll wait," Sam replied, knocking once again, a little more firmly.

Lucy grimaced, "Isn't that a little... weird? Stalker-ish? Even for 'reporters'?"

Sam opened his mouth to respond, then shut it again. Then, the sound of a lock clicking open had the two perking up. The door opened a bit and a scrawny older man poked his head out.

Sam smiled, fluidly taking on his role, "Hi, uh, are you Joseph Welch?"

The man opened the door fully and nodded, "Yeah."

Sam looked apologetic, "My name is Sam Caddy and this is my partner, Lucy. Sorry to bother you this early, but we need to know if anyone came by in the last few days to interview you about your wife's case."

Joseph looked suspicious, but nodded, "There was one guy, sure."

"Was this him?" Sam asked, fishing in his pocket for a second, then pulling something out.

He handed Joseph the old picture of him and Dean with his father as kids. He stepped outside into the light to peer at it, before nodding and walking towards the scrap yard. He gestured for Lucy and Sam to follow him.

"Yeah," he replied, tapping at John's image, "he was older, but that's him. He came by three or four days ago, said he was a reporter."

Lucy nodded as she ran to catch up, "That's right. We're working on a story together."

Joseph shot her a weird look, "Well, I don't know what the hell kind of story you're working on – the questions he asked me."

"About your late wife, Constance?" Sam pried.

Mr. Welch stopped and looked at them, "He asked me where she was buried."

Sam nodded like he didn't already know that, then asked, "And where is that again?"

"What, I got to go through these twice?" Welch replied angrily.

"It's fact-checking," Lucy said placatingly, "if you don't mind."

Joseph visibly calmed and resumed walking, "A plot," he supplied, "behind my old place over on Breckenridge."

"Why did you move?" Sam asked.

"I'm not," Welch replied, choking up, "gonna live in the house where my children died."

Lucy bit her lip while she thought, then asked, "Mr. Welch, did you ever marry again?"

He shook his head, "No way. Constance – she was the love of my life, prettiest woman I ever known."

"So you had a happy marriage?" Lucy continued.

There was a breath, just a moment of hesitation before Mr. Welch said "definitely". Just long enough to mean something.

"Well, that should do it," Sam said, smiling kindly as they reached the car, "Thanks for your time." Welch nodded and started walking back towards the house. Sam fiddled with the car keys for just a moment before looking back up. He and Lucy shared a meaningful look, and wordlessly made a decision.

"Mr. Welch," Sam called out, "have you ever heard of a Woman in White?"

Welch turned, "A what?"

"A Woman in White," Lucy supplied, "Sometimes called a Weeping Woman. It's a ghost story, or, well," she chuckled lowly, "more of a phenomenon, really. They're spirits. They've been sighted for hundreds of years in dozens of places, in Hawaii, New Mexico, lately in Arizona, Indiana – all of these are different women, you understand, but all share the same story."

"Girl, I don't care much for nonsense," Welch said dismissively, walking away once more.

"You see, when they were alive," Sam picked up, "their husbands were unfaithful to them," Joseph Welch froze in place and Lucy knew they had him, "And these women, basically suffering from temporary insanity, murdered their children," Welch whirled on Sam in shock, "Then, once they realized what they had done, they took their own lives. So now, their spirits are cursed, walking backroads, waterways. And if they find an unfaithful man, they kill him, and that man is never seen again."

Joseph Welch was now shaking with fury and Lucy figured her proximity to Sam was the only thing keeping the older man from throwing a punch.

"You think-" Welch started slowly, "You think that has something to do with Constance, you smartass?"

"You tell us," Lucy replied. Welch's gaze shot to her.

"I mean, maybe-," he said, barely containing his rage, "maybe I made some mistakes, but no matter what I did," he pointed his finger in Lucy's face and nearly spit his last words, "Constance _never _would have killed her own children."

"Now, you get the hell out of here, and you don't come back," he finished, trembling, before whipping back around and stalking back to his home. Sam and Lucy watched him leave without saying anything.

"That sucked," Lucy said quietly. Sam sighed and went to start the car.

…

"I don't know how many times I got to tell you," Dean said, irritated, "It's my high school locker combo."

The sheriff ran a hand over his face, "Are we gonna do this all night long?"

Before Dean could respond, another cop stuck his head through the door and said, "Sir, we just got a 911. Shots fired over at Whiteford Road." The sheriff nodded and dismissed him, turning back to Dean.

"Do you have to go to the bathroom?" he asked.

"No?" Dean replied, confused.

"Good," the sheriff said, before promptly handcuffing Dean to the table and leaving. Dean groaned and rattled his handcuff. Then he spotted the paper clip sticking out of the top of the journal. He reached over, picked it up, then studied it and the handcuff lock for a moment. Then he smirked.

_Thanks, Dad._

It took him all of two seconds to pick the lock. He hadn't even been cuffed for longer than a minute.

He laughed to himself. _Cops._

Dean pressed himself against the wall and listened, then, as soon as he was sure the last squad car had pulled away, he grabbed his dad's journal off the desk and made a break for it.

…

The sun had set by the time Sam and Lucy made their way towards the Welch family's old house. The address they found was for a farmhouse in the middle of a labyrinth of backroads. Lucy had a map propped up on her lap and was peering at it with a flashlight.

"Turn right on Centennial," she called, gesturing towards an approaching street sign. Sam smoothly made the turn.

"Okay, your next turn is Church in, like, three miles," she said, clicking off the flashlight and resting her eyes for a second.

Sam nodded, "Thanks, Navigator."

Lucy smiled, and the car returned to silence. Then Lucy remembered what she had been about to ask Sam before the cops sent them on the run.

"Sam," she started, hesitant, and he glanced at her to show he was listening, "In all your time researching the supernatural, have you ever read anything about... prophetic dreams?"

He frowned, "I can't think of anything, why?"

Lucy seized, "Uh- I—I was working on a case before this one and the victim claimed she had been having dreams of the future, of people dying and stuff. I was just thinking about it," she lied not-so-smoothly.

Sam seemed to take her word for it, though, "Most of the time that stuff turns out to be bogus. I've never heard of a case like that, sorry."

"Right," Lucy deflated, "But, maybe-"

At this moment Lucy was, once again, cut off by the sound of Sam's phone ringing. He looked at her apologetically, again, and took one hand off the wheel to reach behind him. He felt around for it and cursed under his breath as he couldn't reach it.

Lucy sighed, "I got it." She deftly plucked the phone from the backseat and clicked the 'answer' button. She didn't get a word out before the caller was talking.

"_Fake 911 phone call, Sammy? I don't know, that's pretty illegal,"_ came the undoubtedly-smirking, familiar drawl from the other end.

"Actually," Lucy corrected, "That was my genius. You're welcome."

"_Lucy," _Dean made a sound of recognition, "_Answering Sam's phone. You haven't killed and ate my brother yet, have you?"_

"He's a little too bony for my taste," Lucy replied, chuckling as Sam shot her a glare, "He's driving right now. I'll put you on speaker, one second," she pressed the button, "There. You're live."

"_Gotcha. Hey, listen, we gotta talk-" _he started.

"Tell me about it," Sam cut in excitedly, "So, the husband _was _unfaithful. We are for sure dealing with a Woman in White. And," he started, cutting off Dean again, "she's buried behind her old house, so that should have been dad's next stop-"

"_Sammy, would you shut up for a second?"_

"We just can't figure out why he wouldn't have destroyed the corpse yet-," Sam continued. Lucy sighed and relaxed into the leather seat, eyes on the road to pass the time while the Winchesters argued.

"_Well, that's what I'm trying to tell you!" _Dean replied, frustrated, "_He's gone. Dad left Jericho."_

"Wait, what?" Sam exclaimed, bewildered, "How do you know?"

"_I've got his journal."_

Sam glanced at the phone, shocked, "He doesn't go anywhere without that."

"_Yeah, well, he did this time."_

"What's it say?"

"_Same old ex-marine crap when he wants to let us know where he's going."_

Lucy looked up at Sam, eyebrow quirked.

"Coordinates," he filled in helpfully, then returned his attention to Dean, "Where to?"

"_I'm not sure yet." _

Sam huffed, "Dean, what the hell is going on?"

Suddenly, Lucy spotted a dark shape in the road. She peered into the gloom, trying to get a better look. Sam hadn't noticed, being deep in conversation, and was speeding right towards it. She realized with a start what, or rather _who_, it was.

"Sam, look out!" she cried. Sam jerked his head up and yelled, slamming on the brakes just a moment too late. He slammed into the woman standing in the road before the car screeched to a stop.

Except he hadn't. It seemed less like the woman had been hit by the car and more like she had... phased _through _it.

"_Sam? Lucy?" _Neither of them answered, still trying to catch their breath.

"Shit," Sam breathed, hands shaking on the wheel. Lucy felt a little nauseous herself, but neither of them were the worse for wear.

"**Take me home**," echoed a voice from behind them. Both Sam and Lucy startled, eyes snapping to the rearview mirror. In the backseat sat a beautiful but ghostly pale woman, with dark, sunken eyes, and long, inky hair. The very picture of Constance Welch. Or the monster that she had become.

Sam and Lucy sat unblinking, barely breathing, and didn't move. They both kept their eyes locked on the undead predator in the back of the car. Their silence seemed to irritate the spirit and her eyes flicked to Sam.

"**Take me home**," she repeated, more forcefully this time.

Sam swallowed hard, "No."

The ghost showed no sign of anger, but a soft click echoed through the car as the door locks snapped into place. Lucy turned to tug at it, trying to get it to release while Sam pulled desperately at the one on his side, but to no avail. With a huff of frustration, Sam threw himself over Lucy to try and combine their force on one door. Once again, it didn't work. Whatever supernatural force was holding the lock down was a lot stronger than they were. She and Sam were trapped.

The moment Sam let go of the wheel, an unseen hand switched the gear into drive and pressed the gas pedal on its own. The car shot forward, throwing Lucy and Sam into each other. After righting themselves, Lucy unbuckled her seatbelt and turned horizontally in her seat, pressing her back to Sam's shoulder.

"Brace me," she ordered, before kicking the door viciously. Sam didn't need to be told twice and quickly moved to support her weight. Lucy got a few more solid kicks in before her ankle started to ache. No progress. Nothing was working. She looked once more to the rearview, where the image of Constance flickered but otherwise remained, and huffed. Wherever Constance was taking them, Sam and Lucy had no choice but to stick along for the ride.

…

It was only a few more minutes before they arrived at the destination Lucy had been expecting, where they had been headed all along. The old Welch home, a now-decrepit farmhouse which was nothing but a skeleton of its old self, loomed before them like a classic horror-movie haunted house as the car rolled to a stop. The car shuddered and went quiet, the headlights clicking off and sending its occupants into complete darkness. When they looked in the rearview mirror, rather than the blank stare they had become familiar with, Constance was looking at the house with something akin to fear.

"Don't do this," Sam said lowly.

The spirit's image flickered once – twice – then she whispered so quietly both Sam and Lucy almost missed it.

"**I can never go home."**

Lucy looked up at the house, gears whirring in her mind, and came to a realization.

"You're scared to go home," she breathed, whirling on the backseat. The creature was gone like she had never been there. Lucy frowned and peered over the seat to be sure, then snapped to attention at Sam's alarmed shout.

Constance had reappeared on Sam's lap and was digging her fingers into Sam's shoulders hard enough to bruise.

"**Hold me**," she said in a breathy tone.

Lucy reached out to grab her as a reflex and was flung back against the window by an unseen force with just a jerk of Constance's chin. A crack resounded through the car as her skull made contact with the glass and her head swam with the pain for longer than she would care to admit. She felt more than heard the seatbelt tighten around her, and, sure enough, when she pressed up against it, she found she was locked in place.

The spirit, in the meantime, was nuzzling her way into Sam's neck, "**Hold me, I'm so cold. Please...**"

"You can't kill me," Sam grunted in pain, "I'm not unfaithful. I never have been." The creature's eyes darkened as she leaned down to whisper in his ear.

"**You will be,**" And she kissed him.

Lucy jerked against her restraints and cried out as Sam lay under the ghost, frozen. If Constance noticed his lack of cooperation, she didn't pull away. Sam clenched his jaw and shut his mouth as tight as he could before slowly, stealthily, reaching for the keys in the ignition. His fingers brushed them and Lucy held her breath as they audibly clicked against each other. Constance shot up straight and her face contorted with rage. Her image violently shifted to that of a maggot-ridden, rotten corpse and back again, before disappearing entirely in a puff of mist. For just a second, all was quiet. Lucy looked around wildly as Sam caught his breath.

Sam's tortured scream drew her attention back in a flash. Sam's back arched and his face scrunched with pain as he tore at his jacket, ripping it open to reveal bloody wounds opening in his chest. The image of a dead, rotting Constance flickered above him, her fingernails-turned-claws digging deep into his skin. She pressed down deeper and deeper and Lucy could do nothing but scream and writhe against her bonds.

He was going to die and she couldn't do anything about it.

Lucy shrieked as shots rang out and shattered the window, making Constance's form flicker but leaving her seeming otherwise unruffled. Lucy raised her hand to her cheek like she was in a trance and felt blood there. As more shots rang out, the spirit dug in harder and turned her gaze on Dean, who had appeared outside the Impala and had a revolver pointed at her. Dean fired again and Lucy felt the seatbelt loosen. She hurriedly unclicked it and threw herself over Sam and into the driver's seat, yanking the ignition. The car's engine roared to life.

"I'm taking you home," she said, as she stomped down on the gas.

The car shot forward, accelerating with a mechanical shriek. Distantly, Lucy heard Dean call out after her, but was drowned out as she plunged the car through the brittle wall of the farmhouse and into a cracked, creaking hallway. It jerked to a halt in the debris. Lucy gripped the steering wheel hard to avoid being thrown through the windshield, coughing on the dust.

"Sam?!" called Dean.

From beside her, Sam responded weakly, "Here," and Dean appeared at the shattered passenger-side window.

"You okay?" he asked them, snatching at the lock and throwing the door open.

"I think so," Lucy replied breathlessly.

"Can you move?" Dean asked Sam, who still lay bloody on the seat.

"Yeah," his brother nodded, turning to Lucy, "Help me."

Lucy and Dean helped to pull Sam out of the car, supporting his weight on their shoulders as he stumbled to his feet. Even when they let go, Sam had to lean heavily on the Impala to keep standing. The three noticed the spirit standing in front of them, picture frame clutched between her pale fingers, almost at the same time and pressed themselves as far away from her as possible.

Cold, undead eyes snapped to theirs as Constance threw the picture down. With a jerk of her head, an armoire came soaring at Lucy and the brothers, knocking the breath out of them and pinning them to the car. They grunted and pushed with all their weight, but the invisible hold on it was too strong. Constance approached slowly, looming over them.

The lights began to flicker and the spirit froze in her tracks, something close to dread crossing her face for just a second. Water began to run in streams down the stairs behind her and she turned, slow and stiff, and moved too fast for the human eye to see. She looked up from the bottom of the stairs, and Lucy could only see the vague silhouettes of two young children, _Constance's children_. Lucy and the boys held their breath, waiting to see what would happen - if Lucy's theory would be proven true.

The children locked hands and a ghoulish whisper echoed around the room, "**You've come home to us, Mommy.**"

In a flash the children, a girl and a boy, appeared behind Constance and she whirled around in shock. They shot forward, wrapping their arms around her middle, and Constance screamed as if being burned. Constance shook and struggled, but the children had their claws in deep. The spirits' screams echoed in the night and took on an unearthly timbre as the floor beneath them began to glow as if on fire. Constance's skin sizzled and melted off as the children, now gruesome skeletons, dragged her into that light. Even when they were gone and the light was disappearing, Constance Welch's pained screams rang out from far away, before stopping altogether. The light winked out with a sickly gurgle, like a swallow. The pressure on the armoire released and, with a push, Lucy and the boys were free.

The three of them immediately made for where the spirits had disappeared. The only trace that they were ever there was a wet puddle in the carpet, and even that was drying quickly.

"So," Dean said, glancing around in a daze, "this is where she drowned her kids."

"That's why she could never go home," Sam let out a disbelieving and borderline hysterical laugh, "She was too scared to face them."

Dean grinned at Lucy, "You found her weak spot. Nice work, Princess."

Lucy smiled, "Lucky guess."

He winked and turned back to the car, slapping Sam on the chest as he did. Sam winced and his laugh was pained.

"Wish we could say the same for you," Sam wheezed, "What were you thinking, shooting Casper in the face like that, you freak?"

"Hey," Dean made finger-guns at him, "saved your ass."

"Yeah, no," Lucy drawled, "that was definitely me. Thanks for the clip, by the way," she added, tapping her wounded cheek.

Dean huffed and propped himself up on his knees to peer at the damage on the car, "Well, I'll tell you another thing. If you screwed up my car," he shot a look at Lucy over his shoulder, "I'll kill you."

Lucy met his gaze for a second, challenging him, before doubling over and bursting into hysterical laughter.

…

"Okay," Sam said, flashlight propped between his chin and shoulder and his finger pointing to a spot on the map in his lap, "here's where Dad went. It's called Blackwater Ridge, Colorado."

The three of them were blasting down the interstate in the middle of the night – Dean at the helm, Lucy in the back, and Sam navigating – all in high-spirits after the night's victory.

Dean tapped the wheel thoughtfully, "Sounds charming. How far?"

"About 600 miles," Sam replied after a moment.

His brother shrugged, "If we shag ass, we can make it by morning."

Sam's face fell, "Dean, I—Um..." he stuttered.

"You're not going." It was a statement, not a question.

Sam, for his part, looked regretful, "The interview's in, like, 10 hours. I got to be there."

Dean's expression hardened and he huffed a laugh like he didn't care, "Yeah. Yeah, whatever. I'll take you home." Sam didn't reply.

"You should probably take me to the train station when you drop Sam off," Lucy said quietly. Dean's grip on the wheel tightened ever so slightly and Sam whipped around to stare at her in shock.

"I mean, you're looking for your dad," Lucy continued quickly, "I really liked working with you guys and I think we make a good team, but that's really none of my business."

"Yeah," Dean said after a moment, "No worries. I'll drive you wherever you need to go."

"Thanks," Lucy replied. The car was silent for a long time after that.

Something in Lucy's gut tightened at the thought of parting ways with the Winchester boys. They were funny and capable and, honestly, they had gotten her hooked on their little mystery. But it wasn't any of her business. It would be weird, travelling around with a guy she met _two days ago _looking for his dad, who Lucy hasn't seen hide nor hair of in a decade. Not since... well, _that_. Right? Yeah, it would totally be weird. Still, Lucy didn't have to like it.

And then there was the matter of her own mystery. Lucy had been having dreams of Sam Winchester dying every night for _weeks_, and then suddenly she meets the guy out of the blue, perfectly alive and healthy, and the dreams stop as if they never existed. No matter how many angles Lucy looked at it from, she couldn't figure it out.

_What does it all mean? And why _him_?_

It was looking more and more like Lucy wasn't going to get those answers.

…

They rolled up on Sam's apartment building just a few hours before his set interview time, early in the morning when the Stanford campus was all but abandoned. Sam hopped out of the car, and Lucy took shotgun. Sam looked towards the front door as if contemplating something, then leaned down towards the window.

"You'll call me, if you find him?" he asked Dean. Dean nodded wordlessly.

"Maybe I can meet up with you later, huh?" Sam offered, hopeful.

"Yeah, all right," Dean replied shortly. Sam nodded, seemingly exhausted, and stepped back from the car. Lucy didn't catch what he said next – her gaze had been drawn by a neon light a ways down the street.

A sign. It read "closed". The "e" flickered once – twice – then went black.

"It was good to meet you, Lucy," Sam said, smiling and bringing Lucy's attention back to him, "You know where I am, if you're ever in California."

Lucy returned the smile, dirty as it felt, "Don't miss me too much." Sam laughed as he turned his back on them, waving over his shoulder has he jogged up the steps. Dean started the Impala's engine.

_Make him stay._

"Sam!" Lucy called out, almost against her will. Sam stopped and looked at her questioningly.

_Don't let him disappear._

Lucy wasn't sure what to say now that she had opened her big mouth. It was like her thoughts weren't her own. She had a terrible feeling about something, but she didn't know _what_.

"You know," she settled on, "the three of us made a hell of a team back there."

Sam's eyes softened and he smiled, "Yeah, we did."

Lucy didn't have any reason to keep him there except for her own gut feeling, and how was she supposed to explain _that_?

_Chill out, Lucy._

"Goodbye, Sam," she said finally, punctuating it with a little wave. She didn't seem him return it as Dean pulled off into the night.

The car was silent for a while, the awkward tension a little stifling. What started as a bad feeling was quickly turning into overwhelming nausea, like her body was punishing her for leaving.

After an uncomfortable amount of time, Dean cleared his throat, shaking Lucy out of her thoughts, "So, uh, where are you gonna go, do you think?"

Lucy welcomed the distraction, "North, probably. I got word of a possible poltergeist case up in Milwaukee before I got to Jericho. Thought I might check that out."

"Cool," Dean said, words stilted, "That's awesome." Another silent moment passed.

"And you're going to Colorado," Lucy said.

Dean cleared his throat, "Yeah."

"Good luck on that," she replied, "finding your dad and all. Tell him I say 'hi' when you do find him."

"Thanks. Uh, sure, yeah, will do." Another round of silence, longer this time. The sick, queasy feeling plaguing Lucy had spread all over her body and was getting rather hard to ignore.

_**You left him behind. You know what's going to happen and you left him behind.**_

The thought rang over and over in Lucy's head, pounding painfully. She didn't notice at first when Dean was talking.

"Hmm?" she asked, trying not to seem like she wasn't listening.

_Shut up, brain. It's just a dream._

She almost believed it.

"Just," he seemed to be struggling, "I was wrong. About you, I mean. I thought you were gonna be a burden, uh, no offense, but you saved our asses. More than once. So, uh, thanks. And sorry, for-" Lucy held up a hand to cut him off.

She made her voice comically low, "No chick flick moments."

Dean stared at her for a long moment, jaw hanging, before bursting out laughing. Lucy giggled alongside him and the two of them laughed themselves breathless.

"Okay," Dean wheezed, "Bitch."

"Jerk," Lucy replied smoothly. Dean grinned. The car lapsed into silence once more, but this time, it was comfortable.

Dean rolled to a stop at a red light and Lucy made the mistake of looking up into its ominous glow. Her headache, which had subsided a bit with the distraction, returned with a vengeance.

_**You left.**_

_Shut up._

_**You **_**knew **_**and you still left.**_

_Shut UP._

_**You could have done something. Anything.**_

_It was just a dream._

_**He's going to die.**_

"Stop the car," Lucy said, struggling to breath.

"What?" Dean asked.

"_Stop the car_."

Dean slammed on the brakes in the middle of the, thankfully abandoned, intersection.

"What the fuck?" he asked, stunned.

Lucy gave him a grim look, "We need to go back for Sam."

Dean's face hardened, "Why?"

"I have a bad feeling."

"You have a bad feeling," he repeated dumbly.

"Yes," she wasn't going to tell him. _How am I supposed to tell him? _She implored him with her eyes to trust her.

He met her stare for a long moment, searching for something there, then he groaned loudly, u-turning hard.

"When we get there, you better explain to me, _in minute detail_, exactly how you have this 'bad feeling'. If you're wrong, you're paying for the gas."

Lucy could only nod dumbly.

_God, I hope I'm wrong._

It only took a few minutes to get back with how Dean was speeding. He hardly even bothered to stop the car and turn it off before leaping out and dashing towards the fire escape, Lucy hot on his heels. They were halfway up when they heard a strangled cry from above. Both of their heads snapped up.

"Sam!" Dean yelled.

"No," Lucy breathed.

_It was real._

Dean and Lucy sprinted the rest of the way and, when they reached the apartment door, Dean didn't even bother knocking. The crash that followed Dean kicking down the door was surely heard by the neighbors, but neither of them could bring themselves to care in the moment.

"Sam?!" Dean called out, searching wildly.

"Jess!" came Sam's voice, screaming from the other room. Dean took off like a shot in that direction and Lucy was dizzy as she followed.

_My dream was real._

Sam's bedroom was a hellscape. Flames licked up the walls and over the ceiling, burning everything in their path. Sam lay frozen on the bed, staring in horror at something on the ceiling. Dean followed the path of his gaze and froze.

Lucy knew, but it still knocked the breath out of her.

A woman was pinned to the ceiling by something unseen, abdomen bloody, dead eyes locked in an expression that mirrored Sam's. The same woman that Lucy had been dreaming about for weeks.

In Lucy's dream, Sam always tries to reach the woman and gets trapped in the flaming room, presumably burning to death. No Dean, no Lucy, no anyone busting in to save the day. Lucy was determined to change the ending this time.

Dean seemed to have a similar thought, rushing forward to grab his hysterical brother by the collar and drag him to his feet and out the door. Sam fought him the whole way, screaming and clawing at Dean to let go. Yelling himself hoarse on cries of "Jess".

Lucy shook herself out of it, rushing to follow the two brothers to safety.

...

When the fire department came, no one could explain how the fire didn't spread to the other apartments, yet spread so quickly. Nor could they identify how it started, or how it burned hot enough to leave no trace of Jessica's body, with no identifiable accelerant.

Jessica, Dean supplied, was Sam's girlfriend. They lived together. He had been planning on asking her to marry him.

And she was dead because of Lucy.

_I could have told him. I _should _have told him. I could have prevented this._

Lucy felt sick to her stomach.

The police had questions for Sam. Lots of questions. They wanted to know if he had any enemies, if Jessica did, if there was anyone who had a key to the apartment, did Sam hear anyone enter, was Sam home at all, why wasn't he home? They made Lucy's head spin, but Sam answered them all clearly with this distant, far-away look in his eye.

Dean had questions too, of course, but he didn't tell Sam about Lucy's strange warning, simply murmuring "we'll talk about this later" and staying around his brother's orbit, ready to step in if Sam showed any sign of needing him.

But he didn't. And that was what was most alarming. Sam seemed too calm for what had happened, checking and rechecking that every gun in the secret compartment in the Impala's trunk was locked and loaded. He was doing a thorough job of it, too, just away from the prying eyes of law enforcement.

Guilt squirmed like maggots in Lucy's stomach.

All of this was Lucy's fault. She could hardly stand to look Dean in the eye right now, let alone Sam. A small part of Lucy cursed Bobby Singer for telling her about Jericho, cursed herself for taking the job.

But if he hadn't - if she hadn't - Sam would be dead too.

She had taken so much from Sam, more than she could every repay, but she knew one thing for sure. She couldn't walk away. Maybe it was selfish of her, maybe it would be best for Sam to get away from her as quickly as possible, but she had to know why this was happening. She had a prophetic dream for weeks about a stranger that was thousands of miles away, a stranger she's not entirely sure she met by chance anymore. She and Sam were connected somehow, and she was determined to figure it out.

Lucy approached Sam quietly, looking into the Impala's trunk. He had long since stopped cleaning guns and stared unblinking, lost in thought, at his handiwork. Lucy saw the pained tension in his shoulders and longed to reach out to him, to do _anything _to make this better, but she couldn't. Sam would hate her, if he knew.

Dean rounded the car, casting unabashedly worried glances at Sam, "Just got you cleared with the cops, you're free to go." Sam didn't do anything to show he had heard Dean except swallow, hard.

_Here goes nothing._

"I'm coming with you," Lucy said firmly, "I want to help you find your father, and... whatever did this." _I did this._

She locked eyes with Dean. She wasn't sure what she was going to say when his "later" talk came around, but she knew she couldn't tell him the truth. Not yet. They would never trust her again, and Lucy's need to know why this was happening to her and Sam outweighed her conscience. Dean looked to Sam for confirmation, and Sam nodded. Stiffly, but he nodded. He looked once more at the trunk full of weapons.

"We've got work to do," he said, and slammed it shut.


End file.
